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After an impulse by on eBay 3 months ago I'm finally starting to make some progress with this new set up. So far I've just done a basic layout. Tank: 90cm x 36cm x 50cm Substrate: ADA Amazonia , 5mm gravel and pool filter sand Hardscape: river stones collected and wife's stolen ornament( some type of manzanita tree) Plants: Low light species. Java ferns, anubias, mosses maybe a few bucephalandra. Filter: tba I have a cycled worx canister I think I'll use Lighting: tba either a 3ft pro z led or makemyled. Livestock: tba I haven't decided yet but some caridina that I won't be selective breeding

Well I've had a busy long weekend. I have decided to almost completely change direction with my shrimp breeding focusing much more on TB, Taitibees, CRS and CBS. Horror of horrors I actually put up several hundred shrimp for sale - me the shrimp hoarder has finally let go of lots of my lovely shrimpies! I even finally posted off the last of my Cherry varieties and now only have culls in a pond outside. I also sold of all my cull CRS, lots of Taitibees and most of my CBS colony. I have 2 people coming to pick out the remaining CBS and Tibees plus 3 people waiting to see if there are any left. So I have finally taken a step towards quality over quantity and will focus on pure line TB, TBM, Taitibees - I want to eventually put them into colour specific tanks to get them breeding true although with the Tibee genes in some lines that will take a while and hopefully they will still give me some nice surprises. my push in this direction has come from this seasons babies. My Tibees are at least F8 and having mixed them with F8 Snow White Mischlings, TB and TBM I am now starting to see some beautiful colours - they are too small to photograph but even at this early stage I can see dark BB, RR, pinto types , pandas and KK even some extreme RR. it has brought back a bit of excitement into the shrimp room and now I will have empty tanks to get ready for colour coordination . I am looking forward to seeing how the babies progress - just have to keep them alive first!

After doing some species counts I was pretty surprised at how many native shrimp I currently have. First is what I am assuming are local grass shrimp, which I easily catch with macrobachium, just the macros I tend to put back in the wild rather than keep. Then there are Riffle shrimp Chameleon shrimp Darwin Red Nose Shrimp Darwin Algae Shrimp Typhus Shrimp And a large macrobachium looking shrimp that I have never formally identified. I did have the other type of Red nose shrimp that doesn't breed in fresh water which I think has now died out in my tanks. I did have Barney Springs shrimp which I think have either since died out or are disguising themselves in with the Blackmores. The zebras I had I know sadly died out. I also have some native snails which I am pretty chuffed with and then some native fish such as Threadfin rainbows, spotted blue eyes, Pacific Blue eyes, locally caught rainbows and Streets Creek rainbows, pygmy rainbows and in the back pond I am pretty sure their are still come purple spot gudgeons. Never did I think I would end up with so many natives and still be on the hunt for some other elusive natives like some local Rhads.

Crypt. Parva, Anubias Nana sp Petite & Mini, Lileopsis 'micro sword' are the first that come to mind, but it depends on what you classify as 'small' and what you want them for,

A lot lol, One half of my 4' is only natives.

I have pretty much the same list as you Baccus, except no macros, but some new species. rifflestypusCaridina cf. confusa "Short Creek"zebrasCaridina sp. "Barney Springs"Caridina sp. "Malanda"chameleonsParatya australiensisCaridina gracilirostrisCaridina sp. "Darwin red nose"Admittedly the jury is still out over whether the last two are seperate species. DNA says they are but I cannot tell the difference morphologically. The Barneys and the Malanda may be the same species too. I've also kept Caridina longirostris and plan on keeping Caridina indistincta "Clade C" once I find some more in the Beliinger River.

I may buy some shrimp but I have noticed a vast improvement in my CRS already just by taking out the poorer quality males. I have also culled 90% of my CBS so hope to see improvement in the new babies. I bought some nice pure TB from Jamie plus some of his TBM so have new genes to add to what I have. I may consider buying a male Tiger for my Tibee line but not sure just yet. I'm just very excited seeing the new bubs . When I first started keeping shrimp nearly 4 years ago now I never dreamed I might have a colony of TB and now I might just get there. I remember drooling over Bluebolts ( Marcus) Blue Bolt shrimp and now I have 12. They were way out of my price range back then but now I can look forward to tanks with all my favourite shrimp types in them. What a change in such a short time!

Riffles are an amazing shrimp, I love mine even if I rarely get to see them (just makes it all the more special when I do LOL). Mine have some prefered hiding and feeding spots mostly in a java fern tree that sits directly infront of the filter return. They also seem to enjoy the fine powder fry food, I guess because its small and floats around for ages allowing them to wiffle their baskets and catch the particles. One of my big girls and a male and same first female but with an adult cory